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NFL blackout rule: Richard Nixon hated it

By Brian Murphy, St. Paul Pioneer-Press

Updated:
07/07/2013 06:01:18 AM MDT

FILE -- This is a Sept. 20, 2009, file photo showing fans in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium stadium during an NFL football game between Arizona Cardinals and the Jacksonville Jaguars, in Jacksonville, Fla. So far, only Jacksonville has had its home opener blacked out last weekend. The Jaguars were so far from selling out that they didn't even bother requesting an extension.
(Steve Cannon, Associated Press)

Football populist Richard Nixon was furious at the NFL and wanted to flex his political muscle to end television blackouts.

At 2:06 p.m. on Dec. 18, 1972, Nixon met with Attorney General Richard Kleindienst at the Executive Office Building and railed against the league's policy that prevented fans from watching their team's home playoff games on TV.

The 37th president of the United States wanted to intervene because the Washington Redskins-Green Bay Packers postseason game at RFK Stadium on Christmas Eve was going to be blacked out in Washington, D.C., even though it already was sold out.

In a conversation secretly recorded by the White House bugging system that helped doom his presidency, Nixon threatened to sue the league if it did not lift blackouts for the playoffs. The devout Redskins fan ordered Kleindienst to "get busy with your lawyers" and take the fight to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Redskins owner Edward Bennett Williams.

The Pioneer Press downloaded the conversation from the National Archives.

"I think that's terrible," Nixon groused. "I think I might call them up and say, 'Put it on TV or I'll sue them all.' I'm all for it. I've said that several times."

"Do you want me to do it?" Kleindienst asked.

"Sure," said Nixon.

"I can scare the hell out of them," the attorney general said.

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"As a matter of fact," the president continued, "Let's also remember that'll kick Edward Bennett Williams in the ass. He's the owner of the goddamn

team. Just say, 'Yes, the games should be on TV.' Take it into district court and ask for an injunction or something."

Listening to Nixon curse the NFL while carrying the flag for Joe Sixpack shows the leader of the free world wielding power six weeks after his landslide re-election over George McGovern, just as the Watergate scandal was about to engulf his administration.

From 1961-72, all NFL home games were blacked out within a 75-mile radius of a home team's market regardless of whether it was sold out.

As the 1972 postseason began, Nixon was miffed his local constituents could not watch their Redskins, who eventually advanced to Super Bowl VII. And he happened to have the country's highest-ranking law enforcement official at his disposal.

"I think it's a bad policy," Nixon told Kleindienst, according to the scratchy recording. "Listen, get the whole bunch, get the whole country riled up. That's my point. Why just make it a Washington story?"

"And limit it to the playoffs?" Kleindienst asks.

"You should say that the president said this. You should call Pete Rozelle ... (and say) that I believe the National Football League should announce that all playoff (games) should be carried in public. Period," Nixon said.

"You might also point out, just so you understand, too, Bennett, the president is not speaking for himself in this instance because he's going to be in Florida. He's going to be watching the game in Florida. It's going to be carried there. But he's speaking for all the people in Washington who didn't vote for him. Put it right that way."

The two men can be heard laughing. Nixon had won 49 states in the election but lost the District of Columbia vote to McGovern.

Later that week, Kleindienst met with Rozelle. The attorney general offered White House protection from Congress mandating the NFL televise all regular-season games in home markets in exchange for the league immediately lifting playoff blackouts. But the commissioner was not interested, according to Joe Browne, who was one of the Rozelle's most trusted advisors.

"Pete told him, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' " Browne recalled last month in an email to the Pioneer Press.

Playoff teams sometimes had less than a week to sell tickets, and owners were concerned then that playoff games would be played and televised in half-empty stadiums without blackouts to drive sales.

What's more, Rozelle liked what he was hearing in Congress, where he had a key ally in U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, the New York Republican and former Buffalo Bills star quarterback. A compromise was reached allowing blackouts if any game was not sold out within 72 hours of kickoff.

"Peter wasn't certain the White House down the road could withstand Congressional and public pressure regarding regular-season games if playoff games started to be televised," said Browne, now a senior adviser to Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Nixon signed the blackout law before the 1973 season.

The league adopted the 72-hour rule even after the law expired in 1975, and the Federal Communications Commission continues to enforce it.

Today, the 40-year-old policy is under assault in Washington.

A sports fans lobbying group has petitioned the FCC to rescind the blackout policy. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has proposed legislation to ban blackouts in markets that have received public financing for stadium construction.